Covid-19: Federal road map ‘seriously flawed’

Victoria’s chief health officer has criticised the federal road map for living with Covid, saying it fails on a number of fronts.

Brett Sutton calls upon the federal government to share the increased health costs from the pandemic. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Daniel Pockett

Victoria’s chief health officer has criticised the federal road map for living with Covid, saying it contains “no explicit recovery phase” and fails to address the fallout of the pandemic of economic dis­advantage, ongoing mental health impacts, health system backlog and the burden of long Covid.

“It is as if we could all soon heave a sigh of relief and move on,” Brett Sutton and his co-author, the Grattan Institute’s Stephen Duckett, write in the Medical Journal of Australia.

“The continuing mental health effects of disruptions to life during 2020 and 2021 are already being seen in the health system, and, as with natural disasters, they will need to be managed for years, not weeks.”

The article names deferred care including elective surgery cancellations and postponed screening procedures as one of the major burdens on the health system in the recovery phase, together with dealing with the likely long-term effects of the disease on cardiac and respiratory function in sufferers.

Professor Sutton and Dr Duckett call upon the federal government to share the increased health costs from the pandemic.

“Under current arrangements, these costs will be borne entirely by the states because of the cap on federal funding,” they write.

Their comments add to calls by state health ministers for the federal government to lift funding to overstretched hospitals.

“The recovery phase after public health emergencies normally includes addressing their economic effects and managing their mental health impacts,” Professor Sutton and Dr Duckett say.

“Covid-19 became a disease of low income workers – those who couldn’t work from home – and their families and communities.

“It affected Australia very un­evenly, with poorer outcomes for those at greatest disadvantage.

“The recovery phase needs to rebuild community and system resilience and redress disadvantage exacerbated by Covid-19.

“Planning for workforce responses, especially preparing for burnout and the needs of staff for time out to recover, will be critical.

“It should also include governments, hospitals and primary care services learning from the crisis.

“In 2022, public health will need to concern itself with the emerging burden of disease and avoidable harms linked with the profound effects of the Covid-19 pandemic over the past two years.”

The MJA has also published an article analysing Australia’s current ICU capacity, finding that there are 8.2 per cent fewer ICU beds available in Australia compared with last year.

Australia currently has 2183 staffed ICU beds available in 194 ICU units in hospitals around the country, 195 fewer than in 2020.

The number of ICU beds available has dropped most markedly in rural and regional hospitals, which have 18 per cent fewer beds than last year, and private hospital ICUs.

Australian hospitals would be able to surge to 813 extra beds in ICU units if required, as well as an extra 2627 ICU bed spaces in surge areas in co-opted wards in hospitals, bringing the nation’s total possible ICU bed capacity to 5623 beds.

Not all these potential beds would be able to be staffed, the ­article by lead author Ed Litton, an intensive care physician, found.

Fewer than half the potential extra ICU beds could be opened with currently available staff levels in hospitals, it found.

Despite the lower number of ICU beds in hospitals in 2021, Dr Litton found surge capacity had likely not changed.